With the numbers of cats of rescue cats rising and the breeding of cross cats/moggies becoming more lucrative, I see lots of cross kittens being sold for £40-100 on the internet. I also see BYB selling lots of different breeds from one establishment.

As regards the neutering campaigns and education programs already set up by the rescue organisations, they are doing what they can to limit the numbers.

I know of breeders who have about six different breeds of cat on the go at one time.
Would it help overall cat numbers if all cat breeders were only allowed to breed/sell one breed* of cat?

*By one breed I mean Bengals would be allowed to have ALCs and some other breeds would be allowed related breeds to their breeding program, but not where a breeder has unrelated breeds eg Maine Coons and Bengals, or Siamese and Persians and Devon Rex, (I choose these examples totally off the top of my head so please don't anybody here feel got at, as it is truly unintentional).

personally I don't think the unwanted cat population is down to breeders, who generally are resonsible people who care for their cats and what they are doing.

As I would say that they majority of unwanted cats at rescue shelters are moggies. So stopping someone from breeding more than one breed isn't going to have much impact on the cats that end up in shelters.

Naomi

Last edited by Oscarsaurus on Mon Apr 23, 2007 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This was initally prompted by a conversation I had with a breeder who is upset that a multibreed breeder has started up next to her, she has inferior cats of numerous breeds, and is undercutting everyone else on price.
Unfortunately she is actually GCCF registered but is not a responsible breeder in my eyes anyway. I don't think her cats are abused or anything hideous is going on, but she is flooding the market with poor quality cats to no-ones benefit apart from her own.

I think meemonkey is right though, in that limiting the number of breeds bred, wouldn't make any difference, the unscrupulous breeders wouldn't care and would still produce kittens for money and not for the good of the breed or for more importantly the good of the kittens.

I think though that there are quite a lot of pedigree cats being rehomed through breed rescue instead of placed in the local 'pound'. Rescue organisations tend to contact breed rescue as well when they have a pedigree cat so the small number in rescue is not an accurate statistic for the number of pedigree cats being rehomed.

"Jack of all trades master of none" is a phrase that springs to mind I think it is quite difficult keeping up with pedigrees/genetics of one breed without 2 or more different ones.

I think though that there are quite a lot of pedigree cats being rehomed through breed rescue instead of placed in the local 'pound'. Rescue organisations tend to contact breed rescue as well when they have a pedigree cat so the small number in rescue is not an accurate statistic for the number of pedigree cats being rehomed.

Elsa

Even so a small number compared to the thousands of moggies that end up in rescue shelters because their owners couldn't be bothered to get them neutered, or even keep them in at night. In Lincoln alone there is always serveral hundred waiting to be rehomed.

I can understand your concern with breeders that are only doing it for the money, but cutting down the amount of breeds they can have isn't going to stop them.

How can you put your full attention into improving a breed if you have say 4 or 5 different breeds. Breeding Bengals or should I say " Buying Bengals " alone to improve my cats is REALLY EXPENSIVE. I couldn't afford to breed a second breed ...properly that is

People just don't understand the cost involved in producing a successful and healthy litter, nevermind progression of the breed......there's very little profit involved and in most cases even a loss after accounting for everything!

Do the sums and you'll see.....we stopped counting a long time ago!

On another note Elsa - I'm dying to know if you actually breed.....your posts are always very well imformed and they're always 100% on the button. Some people in the past haven't always liked what you've said in them even though they've been clearly correct, sometimes people don't like to hear the truth/facts but to be absolutley honest I've always looked forward to reading them and valued your opinion/comments no matter how controversial they might appear to be to others.

Keep it up, without people like yourself the important questions just wouldn't get addressed....good to have you posting once again!

Elsa - I was chatting a few months ago to someone who has a lot to do with the GCCF registrations, they told me that there was just over 3000 bengal kittens registered with them last year in this country.....not including newly imported cats.

I find this figure just staggering, I wouldn't like to hazzard a guess at the true amount of bengals being produced each year including un-registered litters from BYB

This year I'm also more inclined to believe the GCCF figure will be much less due to breeders registering litters just with Tica instead of both organisations, which in the past has been standard procedure with bengals......Theres a lot of unhappy breeders on the ground lately, and not just those who bred bengals.

We'll still register with both, but I know of and have spoke to many that won't just on principal.

on another note - some of the newly imported stud boys just won't be registered or shown at all with them.....this will continue to enforce the divide between the bengal standards and the showing formats of bengals!

We mostly register our kittens with TICA. It's only $10 to register a full litter. Then £6 for each kitten with GCCF.

I give people the option of GCCF or TICA when buying a kitten from us.Sometimes I will register say 1 kitten with GCCF and just declare the rest of the litter...much cheaper that way

It does make you wonder if GCCF would have had say 6000 Bengals registered with them last year OUCH...That would be a lot not to mention other breeds too

I haven't shown with GCCF but I don't like the idea of getting kicked out when judging is done. I much prefer the way TICA shows are run. I enjoy watching the judges talk about the kitten/cat they've selected. A very friendly atmosphere too. Nothing looks clinical and you can dress up the cat cages too...So much fun !

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